You usually make sense, what happened ere. They didn't ignore the readings. They read them and concluded that there was no evidence of raised probability of a major event. The political appointee may have presented that as 'no probability' but that isn't the same.

It is a high risk area with a lot of low level activity. There was a high probability of a major even at some time, but nothing indicated it was imminent. So 'no raised risk' was accurate. The Concordia comparison does not work; the seismologists did not increase the chance of a major event. The captain did.

If you ask a scientist to predict the future you are asking the wrong question. At best they can provide the best odds available given the data and the state of the science. At the moment seismology is still just getting started, if you bang up scientists every time the reality goes against the odds they gave you, then who the hell would work for you?

Tuesday, October 23, 2012 10:36:36 AM@Cajun Government officials at the time arrested one of the scientists who accurately predicted the major quake for inciting panic. Also, what Quackor said. There IS fault to find here if one digs deep enough. Problem is it happened during a notoriously corrupt government. Read some of Silvio's quotes around the time of the quake. Greaseball to the extreme.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012 10:18:09 AMThe scientists did their job, but now the Italian government is moving the goal posts in order to save face. Shame on them, the prosecutor in this case is the one who should be fired and charged with obstruction.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012 10:02:57 AMMaybe they should be fired, but manslaughter charges are ridiculous.This has been my point from the beginning, although even being fired is a little much, at least for the scientists, who did absolutely nothing wrong.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012 9:59:20 AMThe increasing lack of scientific understanding in this world is troubling, and this verdict is more evidence of it. The seismic activity leading up to the quake wasn't significant enough to predict a major quake. Maybe they should be fired, but manslaughter charges are ridiculous.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012 9:53:53 AMif you go to the link i provided you can see that there have been 556 earthquakes greater than Mag 4 in the last 30 days. now tell me how easy it is to predict when a major earthquake will happen and where

Tuesday, October 23, 2012 9:52:22 AMmadest: No scientist can predict the time and place of major earthquakes, it's just not possible. The best scientists can do is offer risk assessment to certain regions. This prosecution of 6 Italian scientists is idiotic.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012 9:49:59 AMIt's like this... Government: "What are the odds this pair of dice will come up with a six?" Scientist: "A bit less than three percent." *Rolls dice* Government: "It came up a 12! You were wrong, it was 100%"

Tuesday, October 23, 2012 9:49:29 AMHow is ignoring seismic readings any different?Who said they ignored the seismic readings? Here's what Enzo Boschi, one of the defendents, said March 31, 2009: "It is unlikely that an earthquake like the one in 1703 could occur in the short term, but the possibility cannot be totally excluded." Sounds to me like he said nothing wrong here, and even acknowledged the possibility of a quake, but YOU CANNOT PREDICT EARTHQUAKES IN THE SHORT TERM. You're making up stuff as you go, @Madest.

Did they do their job? No. Did not doing the job endangered the population? Yes.But they DID do their job. If anyone is even remotely at fault it's the politician who makes the policy decisions. Why blame scientists who did exactly what they were supposed to?

Tuesday, October 23, 2012 9:49:14 AM@madest: earthquakes happen all the time. small and big. you can view earthquakes here and as you can see they are very common. trying to predict them is far from easy or accurate. but scientists try the best they can. not all small tremors result in a major quake to follow. in fact most dont as they happen all the damn time.

as far as your captain goes he made a choice to put people in danger instead of doing his job. these scientists were trying to do their job the best they can to prevent danger if possible, not put them into danger by being reckless like the captain